Nanette Napoleon sounds French enough. Hawaii’s cemetery historian shares with us she has family ties to French President Napoleon Bonaparte but through his brother Lucien and his time in Tahiti. But it was a visit to Pere La Chaise in Paris that Napoleon discovered her passion for places for the dead. She had just graduated from the University of Hawaii was on a backpacking trip through Europe when someone suggested she go find Jim Morrison’s grave.
We spent time with Napoleon at the Oahu Cemetery on Memorial Day pouring over the Book of Record looking for the French Connections in the graveyard. She shared her memory of Per La Chaise.
